Pope Benedict XVI resigns: Softly spoken in Latin, the resignation that shocked the world

The Vatican’s cardinals were getting ready to leave a meeting to discuss three
canonisations, chaired by Pope Benedict XVI, when he announced, in Latin,
that he had one other bit of business to attend to.

By Gordon Rayner and Nick Squires in Rome

8:47PM GMT 11 Feb 2013

From his throne-like chair on a purple dais in the Sala del Concistoro, part of the Apostolic Palace, he quietly told his “fratres carissimi”, or “dear brothers”, that he needed to “communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church”.

Having examined his conscience, he said, he had “come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry”.

His “mind and body” were failing him, and in consequence he had decided to “renounce the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter”.

Due to his choice of Latin, and because of the enormity of what he was saying, several of the 50 cardinals arranged around him on the marble floor did not understand what he was telling them.

Their neighbours explained that the 265th pope had just become the first pontiff in 598 years to resign.

“All the cardinals remained shocked and were looking at each other,” said Monsignor Oscar Sanchez of Mexico, who was in the room at the time.

Only a handful of the Pope’s most senior aides had been given any warning of what was to come. Among them was Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, who said it had come as a “bolt from the blue” when he was told.

The Pope’s announcement came shortly after 10.30am GMT, and at 10.46 the outside world learnt the news via the Italian news agency ANSA, whose Vatican reporter, Giovanna Chirri, got the scoop of her life because she understands Latin.

Given the suddenness of the announcement, and the enduring controversies of the Pope’s eight years in office, suspicions were immediately raised that there was something we were not being told.

Popes, after all, do not resign, they carry on stoically, no matter how frail, until death. Italians are among the world’s great conspiracy theorists, and there were hypotheses aplenty among the crowds gathering in St Peter’s Square.

Was there a scandal about to break in the Vatican which had forced the move? Had one of the child abuse cases the Pope had dealt with during his time as a cardinal come back to haunt him? Was he nursing a secret terminal illness?

Nicola Signorile, a 53-year-old businessman on holiday from Bari in southern Italy, said: “I think it must mean that he is much more ill than we have been led to believe — perhaps even getting towards the end of his life.”

On Twitter, whose users include the Pope himself under the name @Pontifex, Louise Mensch, the former MP and Catholic, said: “Papacy not a job. Cannot believe it … hope more to this than we yet know.” The Vatican, alert to the speculation sweeping the internet, moved swiftly to kill off the rumours, saying that the Pope had not quit because of any “difficulties” in the papacy or because of any “outside pressure”.

The Pope’s spokesman pointed to a phrase in Benedict XVI’s pronouncement in which he said he had made the decision “with full freedom”. Tellingly the Pope’s brother, Georg Ratzinger, also a priest, said he had known for “months” that the announcement was coming, ruling out any suspicion that the resignation had been prompted by events. “His age is weighing on him,” he said.

But it was perhaps the Pope’s reference to his “mind” failing him, as well as his body, that might provide the biggest clue about the reason for his historic decision.

In his previous post as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he was one of John Paul II’s closest aides, and watched him become increasingly incapable of fulfilling his duties as he soldiered on to the end.

No doubt reflecting on that experience, he said in an interview with a German author, published in 2010, that: “If a pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.”

In the same year he praised Celestine V, who resigned in 1294 at the age of 85, the same age as Benedict XVI. At a mass to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Celestine’s birth, he said that Celestine, who retreated into life as a hermit, was an example for men and women who live in an “epoch of greater comfort and possibilities”. In truth, the former Cardinal Ratzinger had been trying to retire for years even before he became Pope.

He had asked John Paul II three times to allow him to retire (the normal age of retirement for senior ministers is 75), but was turned down on each occasion.

Shortly after being elected Pope, he admitted he had been looking forward to retirement, and said: “At a certain point, I prayed to God 'please don’t do this to me’ … Evidently, this time He didn’t listen to me.”

In his first words as Pope, he described himself as an “insufficient instrument”, which may have been modesty, but is now likely to be interpreted as doubt about his ability to take on the job at the age of 78, the oldest new incumbent for 300 years.

Max Seckler, a theology professor and close friend of the Pope from the days when he, too, was an academic, said: “He suffered a lot under certain things that were part of his role. It is hard to imagine what intrigues he had to deal with in Rome. It burdened him because he is a theologian and noble person.

“He has always been prepared to take bold steps, and this is one of them.”

He added that in 1960 the Pope had backed an initiative calling for bishops to be limited to eight years in office. “Perhaps he has remembered this now,” he said.

By the time he was elected in 2005, the Pope had already suffered a stroke, and he suffered another shortly after taking office, as well as managing a heart complaint for which he has been on medication throughout his papacy.

He broke his wrist in a fall in 2009 and there have also been reports that he is suffering from osteoarthritis in his knees, hips and ankles, which is said to have been the reason why he pulled out of a trip to Brazil last July.

There had been suggestions that the Pope was struggling to read and Georg Ratzinger said his brother had been told by doctors he could no longer take trans-Atlantic flights. In recent months the Pope was in such pain when he walked that he was being transported up the aisle of St Peter’s on a wheeled platform.

Hilary Stafford Northcote, who was among 4,000 knights, dames and companions of the Order of Malta who were blessed by the Pope on Saturday in a ceremony to mark the 900th anniversary of the charitable body, said: “It is quite extraordinary to hear the news, but I must say I’m not at all surprised.

“He went right past me on Saturday, so close I could have touched him and he did look terribly frail. As he came past me, he was looking to the left, but he suddenly turned to the right and he caught my eye. There was a split second when he was looking right at me.

“I must say I thought, 'Gosh, he’s not very long for this world’.”

Subtle signs in the way the Pope reacted to breaches of his doctrine had also suggested that “God’s rottweiler”, as he was known for coming down hard on transgressors, had begun to lose his bite.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne said he would discuss with bishops whether the morning-after pill should be allowed for rape victims. Many in the church expected the Pope to issue a warning; instead he said nothing.

For eight years Benedict XVI had been the most conservative of Popes, refusing to budge on issues as abortion, birth control and homosexuality. Yet in deciding that clinging on to the papacy, regardless of deteriorating health, is no longer appropriate for the modern age he saved his most radical and far-reaching decision until last.